While there may be no professional snooker taking place this week, there are a few bits of news to bring you, involving the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Lee and more…
Where else to start but with the reigning world champion, who as you may be aware has his second autobiography, titled ‘Running’ out this Thursday.
As you would expect, the newspapers, in particular The Sun which has serialised the book, have picked up on the juiciest bits, for example of how he helped to get celebrity friend Ronnie Wood into rehab, as well as how he would once ‘push his luck‘ with regard to drug use earlier in his career.
Being the snooker geek that I am, I would personally be more interested to read his account of his performances on the table, as well as his thoughts on his game and fellow players, rather than headline grabbing stories such as these, but hopefully I will be able to snare a copy of his book in due course and be able to provide you with a more detailed review.
As mentioned above, the book will be published this Thursday and you can buy it here from Amazon, amongst other places.
Meanwhile, several of you have been asking me on Twitter this week where they can find the newspaper story anticipated by the recently suspended Stephen Lee when he spoke to television reporters (watch here), outside of his house recently.
In short, you can’t find it because the story hasn’t been published yet and Lee was reported by This is Wiltshire over the weekend as saying the following:
“I’m still going to be doing the statement, but it’s with my lawyers and the main story has been held.”
There is a suggestion that Lee has only two weeks from the initial decision in which to make an appeal (which would be tomorrow, however I have not seen whether this has been confirmed and will therefore continue to watch this space.
Whether Lee proposes to appeal the guilty verdict or simply the sentence handed down to him will be interesting to see, while I also wonder how he will propose to fund an appeal, given that he was not represented at the final hearing.
While Lee will not be present at the International Championship, one man who will be is India’s Pankaj Advani, who in a reversal of last year’s decision to withdraw from the tournament to enter the World Billiards Championship, has this year committed himself to the snooker event.
It is unfortunate that the two events will clash for a second successive year and no doubt this would not have been an easy decision for India’s biggest cuesports star. With big ranking points and prize money on the line however, which could make the difference between him staying on the main tour or not for next season, I can understand why he has made the choice that he has.
Advani will now meet Dave Harold in the last 64, with a possible shot at recent Ruhr Open champion Mark Allen in the last 32.
Rounding up the other news of late, today also saw tickets for the 2014 Welsh Open go on sale, the second tournament this season which will see the full 128 field play at the venue from the first round, following December’s UK Championship.
The entry packs for European Tour Events Six and Seven have also been released by World Snooker, while last week saw Dave Harold and Philip Williams come through the qualifying draw to qualify for the World Seniors Championship next month.